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FAQ

Is the book really only for travel originating in the United States?

Yes. Much as we’d like to include everyone, covering other countries is out of scope for this version of this book.

What about Canada?

Several people have written in to ask if the book will work for Canadians.

Here is Sam’s reply: On the one hand, I hesitate to recommend the book to Canadians because several of the primary resources in the book apply only to those in the United States. And, Canadians don’t have as many opportunities to save due to the lack of competition, particularly for domestic flights on the many routes where there’s a duopoly with WestJet and Air Canada—both airlines have kept fares high on domestic flights after Jetsgo liquidated, and that won’t change soon.

On the other hand, many resources noted in the book can be useful to Canadians. And, if most of your travel involves flights to the United States, then the book will be helpful, since there is more competition on these routes and I discuss how to exploit this for your benefit.

What about booking travel to the United States with an international credit card?

John W.—who resides in New Zealand—wrote in to ask, "Will any of the sites mentioned in the book allow me to purchase tickets using a credit card that has not been issued by an American bank? This is a thorn in the flesh for those of us living in other parts of the world, but visiting North America sufficiently often to make an Internet flight reservation expeditious."

Here is Sam’s reply: The book doesn’t mention whether or not a particular travel site will accept a non-U.S. based credit cards. Most general travel sites—such as Priceline, Travelocity, and Hotwire—accept credit cards only with U.S. billing addresses. However, many airlines accept cards with foreign billing addresses, although in different ways:

Some airlines, such as American, will accept cards only from certain countries they serve when booking on their site aa.com. Unfortunately, they don’t accept New Zealand cards.

Some airlines, like United, have various booking sites depending on your country, and United has a site for those in Australia that accepts Australian cards, but not New Zealand cards. They don’t have a site for New Zealand, and they don’t serve it.

US Airways will accept a non-U.S. credit card, provided the funds are available.

Many of the methods outlined in the book probably won’t work for you, because of the credit card problem.

Update Plans

December 20, 2007 – We’ve decided not to update the PDF for this ebook again, so there won’t be a new version from TidBITS Publishing. However, it is possible that Sam will decide to update the book on his own. If that happens, we’ll post info about the new title here.

A press release for a new Arab Aviation Web site arrived in my email recently. The site has a clean, helpful, intelligent look to it, so I wanted to pass the information along to anyone reading this blog who travels to and from Arab countries. The press release says, “We are pleased to launch our web portal arabavia.com, containing aviation and airline information and news, covering country, airline and MRO briefs, details on over 35,000 airports/aerodromes worldwide, all safety related occurrences in the Arab region, who’s who, services directory (over 4,500 firms), airline statistic, job postings and aircraft exchange platform, and other features.”

[Reader Jim K. wrote in February 2012 to let me know that the link (previously) given above was leading to an unexpected Web page. I checked it out, and I believe that the correct link is now http://arabaviation.com/. I am not 100% sure that this new link goes to the same site that the old one did, but it does look like a helpful site for learning about the airline industry in Arab countries. —Tonya]